Is Your New Paid Search Campaign Ready for the New Year?
A new year to many people means a fresh start in their lives, careers, and relationships. In the coming year I hope that everyone achieves their planned goals and maybe even succeeds in a few new year’s resolutions.
Small and large businesses also look at the new year to develop goals, marketing objects, budgets, and more in hopes of increasing business and generating more revenue. In this day and age, more companies will look online to meet these goals, and if this trend continues, more businesses will start advertising online in 2010 then ever before. If you or someone that you know is looking to start up a new paid search marketing campaign or revamp an existing campaign please take a look at what I believe are the 4 top level tips to remember about paid search.
CTR
Click through rate is perhaps the most important part of your paid search campaign when first starting out. While conversion rate is a key factor in whether a campaign is working or not, click through rate is a great indicator on how your campaign is performing. Low click through rates signal that at the campaign level (not the site level) your choice of keywords, ad text, and placement needs optimization.
Landing Pages
Once an account can maintain a healthy CTR, then you can focus on conversion rates by looking at your site structure itself. No matter how compelling your ad is, a prospect will not purchase from you if your website is a disaster. This is why landing page optimization is just as critical as managing keywords, bids, and ads. If you are not willing to change your landing page or website when running a paid search campaign then you probably need to double check if paid search is right for you. I bold faced the last sentence for a reason: Paid search does not create new leads and sales – your website does. Paid search helps drive qualified traffic to your website, and once there it is up to your website to convert the visitor into a sale.
Existing Accounts
If you already have an account and would like to start fresh, do not delete your account only to create a new one. Instead, work from your existing account so that you maintain your historical data and quality score. This is an important factor for most paid search providers and can effect your rankings greatly.
Quality Score
This is used by the search engines to determine how relevant your campaign is to your the keywords that you are bidding on. It is important that search engines maintain their credibility by only allowing advertisers to bid on keywords that have to do with their products and services. That being said, factors for quality score include:
- Keywords – Make sure that when picking keywords they are relevant to what you are trying to sell, as they affect where your ads will be placed and how much per click you will be charged.
- Ads- When writing an ad, make sure to include the keyword that you are bidding so that the search engine finds it relevant to your campaign.
- Website- Search engines also look at the website to determine if the keywords that you are bidding on are relevant. Make sure that your site mentions the product or service that you are bidding on.
A new year to many people means a fresh start in their lives, careers, and relationships. In the coming year I hope that every achieves their planned goals and maybe even succeed in a few new years resolutions.
Small and large businesses also look at the new year to develop goals, marketing objects, budgets, and more in hope to increase business and make more money. In this day and age this means that more companies will look online to meet these goals and if trends continue then more businesses will start advertising online in 2010 then ever before. If you or someone that you know is looking to start up a new paid search marketing campaign or revamp an existing campaign please take a look at what I believe are the 4 high level tips to remember about paid search.
CTR
Click through rate is perhaps the most important part of your paid search campaign when first starting out. While conversion rate is a key detriment whither a campaign is working or not, click through rate is a great indicator on how your campaign is performing. Low click through rates signal that at the campaign level (not the site level) your choice of keywords, ad text, and placement need optimization
.
Landing Pages
Once an account can maintain healthy CTR, then you can focus on conversion rates by looking at your site structure itself. No matter how compelling your ad is, a prospect will not purchase from your if you website is a disaster. This is why landing page optimization is just as crital as managing keywords, bids, and ads. If you are not willing to change your landing page or website when running a paid search campaign then you probably need to double check if paid search is right for you. I bold faced the last sentence for a reason: Paid search does not create new leads and sales – your website does. Paid search helps drive qualified traffic to your website and once their it is up to your site to convert the visitor into a conversion.
Existing Accounts
If you already have an account and would like to start fresh do not delete your account and create a new one. Instead work from your existing account so that you maintain your historical data and quality score. This is an important factor for most paid search providers and can effect your rankings greatly.
Quality Score
This is used by the search engines to determine how relevant your campaign is to your the keywords that you are bidding on. It is important that search engines maintain there credibility by only allowing advertisers to advertise on keywords that have to do with their products and services. That being said factors for quality score include:
Keywords – Make sure that when picking keywords they are relevant to what you are trying to sell as they effect where your ads will be placed and how much per click you will be charged.
Ads- When writing an ad make sure to include the keyword that you are bidding so that the search engine finds it relevant to your campaign.
Website- Search engines also look at the website to determine if the keywords that you are bidding on are relevant. Make sure that your site mentions the product or service that you are bidding on.
